


praise the genealogy of light

by misandrywitch



Series: illuminated cities at the center of me [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alter Egos, Flirting, Rex Glass wrecks ass, they most just have very tender mushy sex on top of a desk i just wanted to use that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: Peter looks up at him and the expression on his face is dangerous. A razor’s edge. “I think you and Rex Glass have some unfinished business to attend to.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> jury's out on if i will ever write anything about these two that isn't a convoluted excuse for tender post-coitus sweet nothings. i'm 3/3 so far but there are worse problems. takes place at some vague & undetermined point after 'final resting place,' obviously
> 
> shameless shameless excuse to write them fucking on juno's desk. i have never heard of a plot in my entire life. problem? email me never.
> 
> written pre 2 mask 2 murderous / rex glass 1.0 so he's not in rex 2.0 character, but i prefer the original & that's how i'm gonna write him. what can ya do. 
> 
> title from 'Bars poetica' by Bob Hicok / junosteeled.tumblr.com

 

 

 

“Okay, and then -- “ Mick Mercury has one arm slung over Juno’s shoulders, a greeting quickly turned into a tale because Juno gave him an inch and asked him how he was. It’s better, in the end, to have Mick gesticulating in the vicinity of Juno’s head rather than smacking someone else drinking in the very crowded bar in the face with his elbows. It means Juno bears the brunt of his enthusiasm, but he’s used to that. “Then -- “ Mick pauses, looks around for emphasis, “they finally open the airlock! And there’s nothing there! Nobody was outside the ship to make the knocking sound!”

“It sounds like these friends of yours forgot that space travel and booze mix badly,” Juno says dryly.

“I mean that’s probably part of it,” Mick concedes. “But still! Freaky, right?”

“I’m a detective, Mick. Not a ghosthunter. And ghosts aren’t real. And they don’t knock on spaceships.”

“I don’t know, Jay,” Mick says. “Have you ever seen one?”

“No." 

"Then how do you know you haven't seen one if you've never seen one?"

“That -- that doesn’t even -- “

It’s futile, and Mick interrupts him anyway.

“I didn’t realize you were bringing company, Jay!” He says. “We coulda rescheduled!”

“Perish the thought,” says _company,_  looking pleased with himself. “When Juno said he was off to have drinks with his oldest friend I was very honored to be invited along.”

This evening should have been something typical, the two of them and half-price drinks and sticky countertops, the well-worn arguments that friendships of thirty years have run over so many times they’ve been stretched in and out of shape and hardly require any effort. They’ve sat out a thousand evenings like this, Juno and Mick, and the end of the world will probably find the two of them halfway through a bottle of Scotch in a crappy bar bickering pointlessly about who actually busted up Mick’s first real hoverbike. But tonight has swung wildly into something else altogether, something Juno was in no way prepared for when he woke up this morning.

Company. That word.

 _Company_  had climbed legs-first through Juno’s office window that afternoon around four and informed Juno cheerfully and with absolutely no word of warning at all that the floorplan of the museum he was looking at didn’t include a recently installed air duct on the third floor, leaning over his shoulder to point at the spot on the diagram with one gloved finger.

Juno had fallen out of his seat. Peter, back from Jupiter a week early, had just grinned.

So now they’re together, and Mick pulls away from squeezing Juno jovially around the shoulders and Juno is struck by the colossal task of introducing someone who has no identity to speak of to his oldest friend in the world.

“This is, uh,” Juno realizes, mid-sentence, that he doesn’t know who Peter is today, and when he opens his mouth the very first thing that comes to mind falls out, “Rex Glass.”

“Rex!” Mick says, shaking hands, moving his chair over so they can sit down, in a good mood and flushed with it. “Great to meet you!”

“Likewise,” Peter says, and he smiles and there’s something strange about that smile. There’s something strange about his expression, too, when his eyes slide over to Juno’s, bright and curious. Mischievous, maybe. Sly. Like he’s picked up on something.

Maybe he has. It was a slip of the tongue, and it seemed natural enough anyway -- those two names are entangled in Juno’s head.

He rolls his eye.

Peter’s eyebrows go up.

Juno should have known this was a bad idea.

"What do you do, Rex Glass?” Mick asks, bracing his elbows on the table. He’s unquestionably the second tallest person in the room - Peter’s the first - and he’s the loudest and the table buckles a little under his enthusiasm.

Peter smiles. “I’m an art dealer,” he says.

Juno snorts into his elbow.

“Wow!” Mick is apparently fascinated by this. “Like, what kind of stuff? Oh -- is that where you got that fuck ugly thing that’s in your office now, Jay? Please tell me you overcharged him for that thing, it gives me nightmares every time I drop by!”

“I got it so you stop dropping by without calling me first,” Juno says, and Mick shoves his shoulder and he shoves back and they scuffle amicably for a minute until someone shoots a glare in their direction.

“I don’t have a drink,” Juno says, clearing his throat.

“Hey,” Mick says. “Me neither!”

“Don’t push your luck, Mercury,” Juno says as he stands up. He gets Mick a drink anyway, and one for Peter, and he’s awkwardly balancing three glasses -- whatever Peter ordered came in a ridiculous shaped glass with a long stem that’s just about impossible to carry -- as he elbows his way back from the bar through the crowd. Hands on his elbow, suddenly, outside of his line of vision. Juno turns his head and Peter bends a little to pull the drink out of his hands. He wraps his fingers around Juno’s elbow, tucks it into his side, and they return to the table together.

“I don’t need you to -- “ Juno starts, when they sit down again. Peter does that sometimes, unspoken. Sometimes Juno protests. Sometimes he doesn’t.

“I know you don’t,” Peter says. Under the table, their knees touch. After a second, Peter hooks his ankle around Juno’s, possessive and invisible if you aren’t rooting around on the floor for some reason. "I'm simply trying to prove that there is at least one gentleman on Mars, detective. Even if he has to book a shuttle to get here."

Mick grins, and Juno shoves him again, and then gets his revenge when Peter fixes his gaze on Mick’s face and says, “So, Mister Mercury, what is it that you do?”

“Well,” Mick says slowly, the word stretching to four or five times its usual length. “Guess that depends on who you ask. And if they’re doing background checks.”

Juno is on his way to a quip when Peter puts his hand on Juno’s knee, and whatever words he might have said get lost on their way out.

“That sounds exciting,” Peter isn’t looking at Juno. His attention, laser-bright, is still on Mick. “Give me an example.”

Mick blinks, knocks back the rest of his drink. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “Sure! Well, at the moment I’m thinking tour guide service -- “

The details of whatever scheme Mick is brewing up next get lost on Juno because Peter’s fingers are suddenly following the line of stitching on Juno’s trousers, along the inside of his thigh. It’s almost nonchalant, the movement, like an afterthought. Except Juno knows Peter better than that. Even his afterthoughts get put to good use.

He's not a stranger to that, exactly, Peter's casual comfort with the physical. His hand finds it way often to the crook of Juno's arm in a crowd, and Juno likes that more than he'd like to admit. Juno's a violent man -- it's just a fact. It bothers him sometimes, when it isn't saving his life, because it's not something he asked for. It's just something he is. It comes off in his stature, his voice, the scars on his knuckles and the turned-up collar on his coat. It's less obvious, he thinks, with Peter's hand on the crook of his elbow. 

Peter is violent too, and he isn't, and it changes day to day. And this has a thread of something to it that Juno can't quite see. He's reminded suddenly of that first day they'd met, Peter leaning across the space between them at an underwhelming dinner setup to see what Juno will do. 

He takes a large sip of his drink. That's always a good bet. 

"Heard you got hired to find out how that museum got broken into!" Mick says, finishing his evasive description of a very questionable business proposition that Juno resolves to have no part in at all. 

"You heard."

"Well, from Rita." 

"Don't hit on my assistant, Mick," Juno says. "Yeah, I did. It's definitely still a work in progress."

"What went missing?" 

Juno fills him in on a few details. A fuckton of old stones or something walked off with no warning and the perpetrator was caught but won't fess up to how she got into the building. Enter Detective, pursued by rent payments. 

"You need someone to recreate it?" Mick asks. "That could be fun!"

"If it comes up I'll give you a call." 

"Don't tell me a law man would indulge in a bit of breaking and entering," Peter says, and Juno snorts. 

"Jay's great at picking locks," Mick offers. 

"Is he?" 

"Yeah! This one time -- "

"I'm gonna get a refill," Juno decides. "You want something?"

"Glass of wine," Peter says, which isn't what he usually orders at all. "Something red." Juno squints at him, but goes up to the bar. 

 

 

 

 

 

He can't quite put his finger on what's different about Peter today that isn't different any other day in any other situation. He's been invited or coerced into several cases with several aliases in the year that they've been tangled up in this strange song and dance, and is used to seeing the shades of different people that Peter brings to life. It's part of the puzzle and he didn't expect anything else, bring him along.

But this is something else. 

Juno turns back towards the table and it’s clear to him suddenly, just like that, the difference. He’s seen it happen before, of course, but it’s usually calculated or intentional. Not just for fun. Because Juno suggested it. 

Rex Glass -- 

He’s hot, suddenly, under the collar, and he tugs at the neckline of his shirt with his free hand while he looks over at the table.

Peter is leaning on the table with one elbow, and his ankle is resting on his knee. From a distance he’s a graceful collection of long, dark lines - legs, his back, the incline of his head and his wrists under his suit. He’s toying with his half-empty glass as he listens to whatever Mick’s rambling on about now, his shoulder inclined in Mick’s direction. When Mick pauses for breath Peter laughs delightedly, and then he says something and -- Juno blinks -- there’s an honest-to-God flush on Mick’s face and he grins like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

With the exception of one drunken and experimental kiss around the age of nineteen -- Juno had half taken pity on Mick because he’d begged, more or less, to find out what the big deal was and half had wanted to himself -- Mick’s never shown any kind of interest in anybody who isn’t a woman. But --

Juno had watched it work on himself but it’s something else to see Peter playing other people. Or -- Juno corrects himself -- Rex Glass. Because Peter hasn’t changed his clothes or adjusted his hair or even taken his glasses off, but it almost feels like Juno is looking at a completely different person, one who bears a resemblance to someone he knows.

He has no idea how Peter does it, exactly. Fits so many different people into the same set of features. It’s in the line of his back. Peter himself slouches some, sits sideways in chairs and leans on furniture. Rex Glass sits perfectly straight unless he’s inclining his head and shoulders in your direction, the tallest in the room and happy for you to notice that. Rex Glass smiles and shows all his teeth - Peter when he’s seen something novel. Rex Glass makes eye contact, lowers his chin and doesn’t look down the bridge of his nose unless he’s being condescending, emphasizes his words with movements of his fingers. He knows, through quick observation and lots of practice, the right way to charm anyone he meets and he delights in it. He flirts unilaterally with the amused air of someone doing it for the sake of it.

Same face, new person. There’s something electric and exciting in seeing the change right in front of him, this impossible mutability of action and behavior.

There’s something even stranger in the fact that Juno’s starting to recognize where those patterns are pulled from -- when they belong to Peter himself in some variation or iteration, and when they don’t.

Juno sits back down again and Peter turns towards him and smiles, all teeth. Under the table, his fingers land several inches above Juno’s knee and slide higher.

Juno gulps down half his drink, and Mick reaches across the table to pound him cheerfully on the back.

“I hope you know,” Juno says in an aside, when Mick gets up to return their glasses to the bar counter, a funny old habit of his that he’s always had that makes him feel like he’s being helpful, “that Mick’s probably the only straight person on Mars.”

Peter’s eyes flicker in his direction and then back to Juno’s and he shrugs. “Pity,” he says, so Juno doesn’t feel bad slugging him in the stomach.

“Art dealer?” Juno mouths, now that he’s got his attention. “Really?”

“It seemed better than retired special agent, somehow,” Peter says. “And I have some art to sell, tomorrow, so for the moment I suppose that is what I am.”

“That’s called fencing.”

“You don’t know where it came from!”

“If it came out of this museum that got broken into last week we are going to have a conversation.”

“It didn’t,” Peter says firmly as Mick sits back down again. “Now,” he says, looking back to Mick, “I want you to tell me your favorite story about our dear detective as a teenager.”

Mick’s face lights up like he’s just won the lottery. “Have you ever seen a picture of his hair?” He starts, and Juno buries his face in his drink.

 

 

 

 

 

“What a pleasure it has been,” Peter says, when Mick and Juno finally reach an agreement in their typical last-drink-of-the-night who’s-gonna-pay argument, which can last a very long time if uninterrupted, “to spend the evening with the best looking pair of old friends Hyperion City has to offer.”

Juno rolls his eyes and makes sure that Peter can see it when he turns to shake Mick’s hand.

“I owe you one, Jay, seriously,” Mick says, and Juno lets him loop an arm around his shoulders as they walk out the door because he’s in a good mood and old friends are old friends. “I really will pay you for the drinks - I mean it this time! This rabbit tour guide venture is really gonna pay off.”

“That’s what you said last time, with the dogs,” Juno says. “And the time before that with that girlfriend you had. And the time before that with the -- “

Mick squeezes his shoulders and Juno relents.

“I hope nobody steals my bike,” Mick says, “if I leave it here. You think it’ll be alright? I’m just gonna walk home I guess.”

“If someone does steal that hunk of junk,” Juno gestures at the hoverbike, which is chained with excessive thoroughness to a fence along the side of the building, “I know a guy who can steal it back.”

“You’re a real pal,” Mick says. “And that’s not sarcastic. This time.”

“Night, Mick.”

“See you! Have a good one! Promise me you won’t work too hard, alright?” There’s a teasing hint in his words as he turns to go, and Juno rolls his eye so hard it makes his head hurt. Old friends are old friends, and letting Mick Mercury know anything personal means you’re never gonna hear the end of it for the next two years.

Unless he was just referring to the case -- Juno remembers, as he’s hailing a cab, the enormous stack of documents sitting in his office that he should really put some effort into looking over tonight. He sighs and gives the driver the address for his office as Peter slides in behind him, eyebrows going up.

“I left some shit behind,” Juno says, by way of clarification. “That’s what happens when you show up out of the blue and don’t give me any warning.”

“I will pretend to be sorry,” Peter says, and he crosses one leg over the other so his ankle comes to rest against Juno’s. In the backseat of the cab, they feel suddenly very close together and very far apart. Juno breathes in the smell of his cologne, familiar now even in its uniqueness. An odd and consistent detail that is bound to catch him up, someday -- though Juno can imagine versions of Peter Nureyev who forego it altogether just as he knows that it clings to suits and silk neckties and pillows.

“But you’re not,” Juno says, for sake of argument. An argument’s a distraction, because they’re in a cab and Peter’s smile is more like a smirk. “You’re one step away from shooting arrows with little notes attached to them through my window. Don’t -- no. Uh-huh,” he says, quickly, when Peter’s face lights up. “Send me a goddamn email. Use a telephone.”

“You know full well my phone line’s encrypted, detective, I can’t just use it anywhere.”

“Get out of the car,” Juno says, shaking his head, and Peter does. He holds the door for Juno too, which earns him another solid eye-roll, and waits as Juno unlocks the building, an inch too close for propriety.

The night air should clear his mind but it doesn’t. It’s a heavy evening, nothing crisp or clear about it, city life filling the air with light and pollution and the smell of Peter’s cologne stuck in his head. The lock doesn’t want to turn so Juno tugs at it -- need to get this damn thing replaced, probably with one of those electronic locks but those are easier to hack and he learned his lesson -- and then Peter catches his wrist, gloved hands on bare skin.

“Allow me,” he says.

“I don’t need -- “ Juno snaps, a reflex, but Peter’s already turning the key in the lock and holding open the door.

“After you,” he says, so Juno shrugs his way through the door and unlocks his office.

He switches on the light and gathers up papers into a stack. Peter leans his back against the door and watches him. Juno can’t see him in his limited peripheral vision but he can feel him, somehow.

“So, uh,” he says, as he yanks open the filing cabinet along one wall to find what he’s looking for, then slams it shut when he realizes he’s got the wrong one, “listen. I know Mick can be kind of a lot. Kind of all the time. He’s, y’know. He’s been around for a lot too. So thanks, Nureyev.”

It feels like a stupid thing to say out loud. Some kind of previous unacknowledged formality in the ambiguous whatever-this-is they drift in that could have been ignored if Juno hadn’t said something out loud.

He hears Peter shift a little against the door and braces himself, unsure what he’s going to say in response to his own clumsy attempt at sincerity.

“Who?” Peter says.

Juno turns around, frowns. Mick’s a lot of things but _forgettable_ is not one of them, unless there’s a joke he’s not getting.

“Uh,” he starts, and Peter moves again, pushes himself up from where he had been leaning against the door with one shoulder. It’s an easy, fluid motion and Juno can’t help but watch him move.

“I know it’s been a while, detective,” Peter says, “but it hasn’t been that long, surely. I rather hoped I made an impression on you. You certainly made one on me.”

“Yeah,” Juno says, two steps behind. “Alright, you -- “

Peter crosses the room and takes the stack of papers from Juno’s hands, sets them down on the spare chair that Rita utilizes for filing. “That name,” he says. When he straightens Juno finds himself looking up at him. Peter catches the end of Juno’s tie, blue stripes, between his still-gloved fingers and considers it for a second. “Old boyfriend? Or -- new boyfriend? Doesn’t matter. He’s not here now, is he.”

“Oh,” Juno says, clueing in. “You’re still doing the -- the Glass thing. Yeah, very funny. Got it. You’re making fun of me. It was a better alternative than whatever name I’d make up for you on the spot, believe me. So that name stuck around a little, so sue me.”

“I should hope so,” Peter says -- or Rex Glass says. Same face, same voice, same man. But Juno’s palms have gone sweaty at the prospect, some long-buried fantasy that’s honest and silly in its simplicity. The potential of _what-if_ and the shoulders of a well-dressed mysterious man in a dark suit with a badge before any of the rest of it -- keys and trains and Juno’s bad decisions, prison breaks and promises they’ve both managed to keep so far.

Peter’s eyes on his aren’t new, not anymore. The way it makes him feel isn’t new either, though it certainly doesn’t stop being thrilling. But this has the edge of something else.

Juno watches as Peter’s fingers slide up the length of his tie, then let it go. He pulls his gloves off, left hand then right, and his wrists are pale and angular under the cuffs of his shirt. He returns his attention to Juno’s tie, digs one nail under the knot to loosen it and then pulls down.

Fabric rasps over Juno’s shirt, over Peter’s fingers as he slides the loop under and around itself. Juno leans into it. He can’t help it. He watches Peter’s face as Peter lets the tie slither onto the floor, making no attempt to stop it, then adjusts the collar of Juno’s shirt. His touch -- along the edge of the fabric, one button, the hollow of Juno’s throat where his pulse is thin and close -- is aimless but deliberate.

“I don’t suppose you want to have a drink?” Peter asks, and his words are as smooth as the tie over the fabric of Juno’s shirt.

“We’re in my office,” Juno says. His own voice sticks a little, gravelly.

“It’s only polite to ask.”

“There’s a bottle of something in the bottom drawer of my desk,” Juno says. “Can’t guarantee to its quality, though.”

When Peter steps away to open the drawer Juno feels the distance like it hurts. He’s often light years away, sometimes for a while, but that feels abstract in the way that the length of Juno’s heavy desk doesn’t. Peter pours drinks in glasses, tidy movements that Juno can’t look away from, and he slides Juno’s across the desk to him before picking up his own.

It’s not a great bottle of whiskey but Juno’s not choosy. He takes a sip and watches Peter make a face when he does the same.

“Sorry,” he says, turns to lean one hip against the desk and swallows more whiskey. “They say there’s no accounting for taste. Never learned that lesson. One of many, I guess.”

Peter’s footsteps behind him. His voice, suddenly right in Juno’s ear. “I don’t mind,” he says, lips against Juno’s neck and chest warm against Juno’s back. “They also say there’s thrill in living dangerously.”

The tiny hairs on the back of Juno’s neck and his arms stand on end, electric, as Peter’s lips ghost over the shell of his ear, the edge of his jaw. He can feel the rhythm of Peter’s heart against his back through their clothes.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is rough. “That one I’m more familiar with.”

“So you say,” Peter says. His fingers trace down Juno’s arms, raising goosebumps under his shirt, and catch his hips.

“I invited you back to my place, didn’t I?” Juno says, and Peter laughs, low and wicked, right in his ear. There’s a scar, an ugly deep one, right above Juno’s right hip. Souvenir of an old bullet wound. Peter follows it with his finger, pushing up the hem of Juno’s shirt, then covers it with his palm. Warm fingers on Juno’s stomach that move with the pace of his own breathing, suddenly fast.

When Juno turns around he can see the heat in Peter’s eyes. He pulls, hard, at the collar of Peter’s shirt at the same time Peter presses him, insistent, against the edge of his desk.

Peter kisses him.

There’s a running list of shit in Juno’s head that he’s got to sort in the next week, the next month, the intangible and always-present need to pay the rent and get work done and clean up what you can of the mess you’re going to make next. Get Alessandra that HCPD record she asked for, and pay Rita, and it’s your brother’s birthday soon, and that museum break-in case isn’t going to solve itself, and Cass Kanagawa’s still in jail thanks to you, Steel, and --

And Peter’s mouth is hot on the skin of his neck as his fingers pull Juno’s shirt collar back then catch his hips. Peter kisses him and Juno presses up to meet him, holding onto Peter’s shoulders for half a second to center himself. He doesn’t even get that because Peter’s pulling back, grinning, and his hands are at Juno’s belt buckle. He kisses Juno again, hard, and then he sits back, creasing the lines of his dark suit at the knees.

“You don’t wanna go back to my apartment first?” Juno says, even as his stomach drops, because he knows it will make him laugh.

“I don’t think you and I are much concerned with pretense right now, detective,” Peter looks up at him and the expression on his face is dangerous. A razor’s edge. “I think you and Rex Glass have some unfinished business to attend to.”

Juno feels it happening as surely as he feels his own heart leap up and sideways with the line of Peter’s smile. All that bullshit to come back to - but in this moment, the perimeter of his world begins and ends with that light in Peter’s eyes and his hands steady on Juno’s thighs and his mouth on the scar above his hipbone. Peter touches him, fingers on fabric over the line of his cock followed by his mouth a second later and when Juno looks down Peter is looking up, smug. He closes his eyes, dizzy with the possibility of where this could go - the only thing, right now, that matters.

Peter pulls his underwear down, bites Juno’s hipbone hard enough to bruise, hard enough that Juno can imagine the shadow of the mark there tomorrow morning -- all teeth. He traps Juno’s hips with both hands then raises his eyes again, like he’s waiting for something. Teasing. Watching Juno watch him, breathless and hard.

“For fuck’s sake,” Juno manages. “Rex -- “

Peter’s grin eats up his whole face.

When he slides his tongue up the length of Juno’s cock, agonizingly slow, he doesn’t look away which means Juno can’t either, until he can’t stand it anymore and he closes his eyes as Peter presses down. He lets Juno’s hips go for a second to grab his hand, their fingers sliding over each other for another moment until Peter’s moved his hand to the back of his own head. His hair is dark, thick and glossy between Juno’s fingers, and he doesn’t tug on it, just digs his fingers into Peter’s scalp. Peter moans, a little giveaway, and Juno feels it in his whole body.

Juno gets close, and he pulls at Peter’s hair and Peter pulls away and stands up. Juno kisses him hard, pulling his face down, and he gets the reaction he’s looking for when he tugs at Peter’s lower lip. Peter tilts his head back, lets Juno follow the line of his neck with his lips before kissing him again. He’s hard against Juno’s thigh and Juno grinds against him, can’t help it, the small of his back still pressed flat against the desk.

He pulls at the hem of Peter’s shirt, wants to touch skin, and Peter bends a little to tug it over his head without bothering to undo any of the buttons. When he tosses it aside his face is flushed, hair disheveled. Composure momentarily dissolved, breathless honesty.

Until he undoes the buttons on Juno’s shirt. Slowly, one by one. Eyes dark, he looks like he’s contemplating a puzzle. Juno knows he can feel the thread of his pulse.

When they’d first met Juno had wondered if there was anything Peter Nureyev couldn’t do. That being around him was like being swept up by some force of nature -- the only thing you could do was hold on and hope for the best and pray to whoever might be listening you’d be in one piece when you came out the other side.

Now -- well, Juno’s trying to give it his best shot and meeting him every step of the way. He thinks, privately, that it’s a good thing he knows Peter better now.

Peter finishes with the buttons, slides the shirt over Juno’s shoulders and suddenly the only thing he wants is to be as close to Peter as possible. He lets Peter push him up and sideways, back flat on the cluttered surface of his desk. The bottle of whiskey wobbles ominously for a second and Juno grabs at it before it can fall. Papers slide haphazardly onto the floor, a stack of manilla envelopes topples as Peter puts one knee and then the other on the desk, supports himself above Juno’s body.

There’s something under his left shoulder blade and he shifts, grinds against Peter’s thigh in the process, and Peter’s pulling his own trousers down in the minute it takes Juno to grab the offending object, which happens to be spare cartridges for his blaster. They join the paperwork on the floor. Something to worry about later, when his desk returns to its primary purpose beyond being the surface that Rex Glass, canine smile and long fingers, lays him out over.

“What?” Juno says, because he knows the bravado will make Peter smile and because he doesn’t know how much longer he can take it. The light in Peter’s eyes. The distance between them, almost nothing but still huge. He touches Peter’s collarbone, the decades-old scar that runs the line of one thigh. “You’re just gonna lay there and look at me?”

“Patience is a virtue, detective,” Peter leans forward as he says it so Juno feels the words as clearly as he hears them, against his jaw.

“Virtues,” Juno says. “Heard of those. Don’t have too many myself.”

“A theory I can test?”

“Think you better.”

Peter touches his bottom lip, his cheek, his right eyebrow and the corner of his eye. The elegant lines of his shoulders, framed against the ceiling, shift and move as he presses his mouth to Juno’s ribcage, his knee as he pushes Juno’s legs apart.

His head swims. He’s struck by the desire, fleeting and ridiculous, to kiss the top of Peter’s head, the spot where the dark hairs gather and curve in a wave. Innocent, considering the focus of Peter’s attention and the movement of his hands, long fingers, one and then two of them and Juno knows he’s watching when he swears. His own hands claw across the surface of his desk looking for a grip, knocking more envelopes and an ugly paperweight aside as Peter strokes him, puts the heel of his hand at the base of Juno’s cock so he pushes against it, desperate.

Peter pulls his fingers out and Juno says “Rex -- “ like a gasp that gets lost a second later because Peter’s leaning upwards, kissing his own fake name as Juno says it. Juno gets his knee around Peter’s lower back as Peter pushes in, his fingers catching Juno’s hair.

“Oh fuck,” Juno says, and Peter sinks his teeth into his shoulder. It will bruise tomorrow. He’s had worse bruises for much worse reasons.

They establish a rhythm, murderous push and pull that Juno falls into until Peter surprises him, on and on. Juno can’t concentrate on everything he wants to. He watches Peter’s eyes, so dark as his lids flutter, his lashes dropping shadows on his cheeks.

He opens them and they stare at each other and Juno thinks he knows exactly who Peter is.

When Juno met Rex Glass, with just enough information to know that he was handsome, debonair and absolutely not who he said he was, he thought he was the kind of man whose life was filled with lies. But there’s no lie in this - Peter’s fingers tangled in his own and his breathing, close and steady and real. Juno knows that as fact without even having to ask it out loud.

Peter shifts the angle of his hips, tugs at Juno’s hair to pull his head back and everything in Juno’s head goes white and grey and he doesn’t know what name comes out of his mouth, only that he says something - Rex, Duke, Peter, Peter, _Peter_ \- and it hardly matters, same man, same face, all these stories and histories and half-truths coalescing into this moment.

Peter says his name, fast and hot against his shoulder, and he only says one because it’s the only one Juno’s got. It pushes him over the edge and Juno comes, toes curling, fingers digging into Peter’s shoulder. A moment later Peter does too, his mouth hot and open against Juno’s.

They lay there for a minute. The office building is very quiet, dark and empty with none of the usual sounds of life that come from upstairs. Except for the traffic, late-night city noise filtering in, the only sound is their breathing. Juno’s comes ragged and heavy, all the way through him.

 

 

 

 

 

“Fuck,” he says

Peter rolls sideways, catches himself on Juno’s office chair before moving out of sight. Juno manages to get from the desk to the floor and doesn’t imagine he’ll make it any farther for a while.

He should probably bleach the desk before Rita comes in tomorrow.

A problem for the morning.

He hears Peter’s footsteps a second before he comes into view. Even his ankles are elegant, as are the lines of his calves.

“Well,” Juno says, slowly, “that answers a few of my questions, I guess.”

From the floor, he can see there’s a collection of dust on the underside of his desk. He can’t think of the last time he cleaned down there and he’s not about to waste brainpower considering it. He turns his head instead to see Peter’s joined him on the floor, tossed his coat over both their knees.

“Oh?” Peter says. He shifts to face Juno all the way then puts his head on Juno’s shoulder. His hair tickles. Juno lets him rest it there, his own fingers on Peter’s shoulder. Intimacy of all shades.

“Yeah,” Juno says. “I would’ve had a much harder time calling the cops on you after that.”

Peter tilts his head back and laughs, delighted, the shine of sweat along his upper lip.

“Not that I’m encouraging you,” Juno says.

“Just warn me if I have to get dressed in a hurry.”

“That’s why I’ve got guidelines,” Juno says, and Peter rolls his eyes because he seems to think it’s all rather silly where Juno took that seriously. Rule one - Juno doesn’t want to know about any of Peter’s enterprises on Mars unless someone is in danger. Rule two - no handcuffs. Unless someone requests them.

“The funny thing is,” Peter says, and he sounds contemplative enough that Juno looks down at him, “that if I had been seriously committed to the artistic integrity of the thing this probably would not have been the end result.” Juno opens his mouth to ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean in an attempt to discover if he should be offended, but Peter continues before he can. “You see, Rex Glass is terrible in bed.”

“What? How do you come up with this stuff?"

“Just awful. Abysmal. Unforgettable in the worst way. You’d never have fled the planet with him if we’d gotten this far.”

“I -- why?” Juno manages. Against his shoulder, Peter shrugs.

“Because it made me laugh. He’s very genteel, Secret Agent Glass, and the thought that someone who always figures out the right thing to say to flatter anybody is just horrendous at sex is hilarious. Don’t tell me it isn’t. He’s quite self-involved about it, and his dirty talk is comical.”

“So if we’d slept together,” Juno says slowly, “it would have sucked. On purpose.”

“Honestly?” Peter considers, “no. Not really. I was really rather taken with you, you see.”

“Well,” Juno says, “if you really wanna know, you weren’t the only one.”

“I do,” Peter says. Juno can feel the words as Peter speaks them, on the skin of his shoulder. “I do want to know.”

“Rex Glass got me good,” Juno says. “You know, I -- yeah.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Juno says, then continues anyway. “I knew, you know, that you weren’t who you said you were, knew you were involved with the Mask somehow but I still thought about it. Going with you. For half a second, anyway.”

He had. He’d kicked himself for it later, over and over. Knowing had been half the battle and the more time went by the more certain Juno had been of his own conclusions. The more certain he was, the more angry. What did you expect to happen, Steel? Knew he was lying and invited him back to yours anyway, first person to toss a smile in your direction in god knows how long and you’re pouring him a drink while he’s plotting how to rob you. What did you expect?

Certainly not this.

“Oh,” Peter says, quietly. Like a reflex, his fingers flex against Juno’s ribs.

Intimacy in many shades. Juno still doesn’t know what to do with that. He finds he doesn’t mind it like he thought he would.

“I mean,” he says, quickly, to dispel it, “I know that’s what he was supposed to do. Rex Glass. Get me good. You had to, to -- “

Peter surprises him. Of course he does. He starts laughing, a genuine snort into Juno’s shoulder. “No, darling,” he says brightly. He sits up again, to look Juno in the eye, his fingers flat on Juno’s chest. His hands are warm and his hair falls into his face. Juno reaches out to brush it out of the way. “You see, Rex Glass got some edits.”

“Some edits.”

“He’s a proper romantic now. He never thought it would happen to him, but it did. Caught him very off guard. There’s this detective, you see, and there was this kiss -- “

Juno doesn’t know what to say to that. He’d thought himself the galaxy’s biggest fool, getting swindled by a pretty face and not being able to say no to him when he wandered back into Juno’s apartment and his life a second time. From the other direction -- he can’t understand it. Still doesn’t know, even now, what caused Peter to do it at all. Trust, maybe. Or something bigger.

Peter’s a lot of things, but he’s not a moron.

Juno can’t say the same for himself, but you take what you can get.

“Sure,” he says. “And this key, in his pocket.”

“You aren’t still caught up on that, are you?” Peter says, teasing. “Because let me remind you, Juno, that while I was busy picking your pocket you were busy putting handcuffs on me. I’d consider us even.”

Even. Peter left, then Peter came back. Juno left, then he came back too. And now they’re here.

“You know,” Juno says, “I thought about you a lot. After you left with the Mask." 

"Not all in anger, surely."

"Not the whole time."

"You didn't look me up," Peter says, accusingly. 

"You're still hung up on that?" Juno asks, teasing, and Peter's fingers dig into his ribs just a little. "I already told you why I didn't." 

"Giving you the terrific opportunity to dig around in my head and see it for yourself," Peter says. "Though, frankly, that was probably more thrilling than reading some dossier about me written by some Outer Rim bureaucrat relishing the opportunity to throw around the word  _terrorist._ And that old photo. It's terrible. You thought about me." 

"Hoped you were gonna let that one drop."

"I would never. Your office is freezing, Juno." He tugs at Juno's jacket, which really doesn't function well as a blanket. 

"But the rent is affordable, most of the time. Yeah, I did. Thought about what you were doing. Where in the galaxy you were. You know. My apartment probably isn't freezing." 

"Then I suggest we head in that direction, if you've quite recovered."

"Don't be smug. It looks good on you and you know it." 

Peter stands up and Juno watches him as he sorts through the discarded pile of their clothes then tosses Juno his shirt, his eyepatch, his trousers. Peter pulls his shirt on, an elegant slide of muscles over shoulderblades and movement of fingers and when he notices Juno watching him he smiles. It's soft, caught in the corner of his mouth, an expression Juno's never seen on his face when he's pretending to be someone he's not. 

Because that -- that’s Peter Nureyev through and through. Flying through life with only his charm and his smile and his quick fingers, by the seat of his pants or the skin of his teeth. Somehow holding on to the things that matter, when another man would have dropped them a long time ago.

They have that in common.

Juno’s life isn’t like that -- near misses and good stories and fake names. His is linear, or maybe circular, always back where he started and slogging through it, knuckles to jawbone. Somehow, those lives intersected and somehow, Peter keeps coming back here -- the dusty underside of Juno’s office desk and drinks with his old friends and the city light in his eyes.

"I thought about you too," Peter says. "Put your pants on." 

Something in Juno's chest twinges. He does as instructed, to cover it. Peter steps over to him and does up the buttons on his shirt. Juno doesn't protest, just lets him. He looks up at him as Peter fiddles with the collar and pauses, his hands on Juno's shoulders. 

"What?" Juno asks. "You did?"

"Of course I did. More than I'd honestly care to admit, darling. Now let's go home, shall we?" 

Juno puts on his coat, and he shuts off the light and locks his office door behind him. In the hallway, Peter takes Juno's right elbow and tucks it against his side. The city is busy with late-night traffic, people walking and cars blaring their horns at each other and nobody pays them any mind except each other. 

"Yeah," Juno says. "Let's."


End file.
